A Meeting Place for Evangelicals, Reformed, and Orthodox Christians

Category: Reformed Theology

A Response to Rev. Peter Leithart’s “Puritan Sacramentalism” The Rev. Peter Leithart wrote a provocative article “Puritan Sacramentalism” which appeared in First Things. Already his article has elicited at least two responses by Orthodox Christians on Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy: Gabe Martini’s “On Leithart’s Puritans and the Purity of Sacraments” and Father Andrew Stephen Damick’s “Is Liturgy Magic? A Response to Peter Leithart’s Puritan Sacramentalism.” Fr. Andrew and Gabe Martini in their…

Today’s posting is by Stefan Pavićević. Welcome Stefan! Stefan Pavićević was born and raised in the city of Bitola, the Republic of Macedonia (aka FYROM). He is currently studying engineering and computer science at St. Clement of Ohrid University of Bitola. He attends the Most Holy Theotokos Orthodox Church (Црквата Света Богородица). I was raised in a nominal Eastern Orthodox family. …

Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick recently wrote “My Presbyterian Field Trip: A Fragmenting Tradition” in which he described a meeting at a church that was considering leaving the mainline Presbyterian Church (USA) for the smaller, more conservative ECO (A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians). The leader of the ECO was there to make the case for the move and a prominent member of the Missions Department of…

Athanasius the Great summed up the connection between the Incarnation and our salvation in the famous line: God became human, so that we might become god. The doctrine of theosis (deification) sums up the Orthodox understanding of salvation in Christ. It is also the source of friction between Reformed and Orthodox Christians. In this blog posting I will show how the Orthodox understanding…

Many Evangelicals love to read and study St. Paul’s letters and consider Paul the greatest missionary of all time. But few stop to think about which church Paul came from. Many know that he was born in Tarsus, was educated in Jerusalem under Rabbi Gamaliel, and that he spent three years in the Arabian dessert after his encounter with Christ. But many would draw a blank if asked: Where was Apostle…

This blog posting is a response to Erik’s excellent comment to the previous blog posting “An Orthodox Critique of the Cultural/Dominion Mandate.” Thank you Erik for contributing to the Reform-Orthodox dialogue! From Erik: As for the key to CR, Rushdoony states that “Because we are not God, for us the decisive power in society must be the regenerating power of God and the work of the Holy Spirit in and through us. Not…

Within the Reformed Christian tradition arose a small but influential movement in the mid/late 1960s known as Christian Reconstructionism. While based on Reformed theology it contains some significant and unique twists. Reconstructionism is marked by certain distinctives: the cultural mandate, sphere sovereignty (soevereiniteit in eigen kring), presuppositional apologetics, and the rejection of an otherworldly pietism. Among its key thinkers are: R.J. Rushdoony (considered the movement’s founder), Gary North (his son-in-law), James…